The Hammock Papers: Gratitude.

26 March 2015

Gratitude.

Bateman, Bull Moose, 1970

Since I am now an octogenarian I am going to invoke the privilege of handing out advice and opinions. If you choose to doze off, I plan to post this address at RobertBateman.ca. I will be quoting various people from Mark Twain to the Rolling Stones as I go along. Mark Twain said, “Growing old is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” That same advice could apply to so many things in life – very Bhuddist. Twain also said, “Some of the worst things in my life … never happened.”

That leads me to my first piece of advice. DON’T WORRY. I mean it. Worrying makes no sense. Either do something about the problem if you can, or, if you can’t do something, forget it. I know that’s easier said than done so here is my second piece of advice: PROCRASTINATE. I don’t mean procrastinate about duties to be done. Don’t be a shirker. I mean procrastinate about worrying. Say to yourself, “I’m OK at the moment so I will worry about the problem later.” Some of the worst things in your life may never happen so why build up your own bad cortisol hormone and maybe raise your blood pressure and shorten your life for no point at all? If you keep procrastinating your worry, time will likely take care of everything (as my mother always said). (I tried this a few years ago when I had a cancer scare and it seemed to work.) Action is good but worrying has bad side effects. I’ve sometimes found it helpful to pretend that I’m in a movie.

Here are a couple of other tips in the worrying department. Try the three breath meditation. I am a hopeless meditator but I seem to be able to be mindful for three breaths. Ten is stretching it. If you are stressed, stop, relax your toes, relax your tongue, think about your finger tips and take three slow, conscious breaths … small investment for good results. What about the problems of the planet? I am well aware of the problems of the planet but I don’t wreck my days or nights obsessing about them. If you find yourself worrying about the state of the world, go outside, take your three breaths, address a tree and quietly say thank you. If you can’t find a tree a dandelion will do. Gratitude is a good idea and it is very under-rated in our society. We definitely owe gratitude to the plant kingdom. They are on our side. So pick your tree and express gratitude to it as a representative of the world’s flora. Go for a walk in nature even for a few minutes every day.

Personally I don’t lose a wink of sleep over the disasters happening to the planet. I try to do what I can in my own way – write letters, rant, make a donation etc., and then enjoy life on this beautiful planet. Follow E. O. Wilson’s advice; fall in love with life on earth. Love is better than fear. You are wasting your life if all you do is fret about such things. And you might only have one life.

Robert Bateman

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WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL